She looked at it, then grasped it fiercely. Her eyes rose and locked on his.
Frank smiled. “Ready to go? In one, two, three-”
They jumped.
“The Spanish are moving again, damn it,” cursed Owen.
“They might be, but you shouldn’t,” replied North. “You should be hobbling back down the tunnel already, so you don’t hold us up.”
The Irishman smiled. “You can’t order me about, fellow-Colonel Sassenach.”
“Actually, I can. Colonel or not, I am in the direct employ of the USE. You, sir, are merely some baggage we picked up along the way. Meaning that I can indeed give you orders, and here is the one I’m giving you now: that you allow Mr. Jeffrey here to help you down the stairs into the tunnels and that you both start back to Cala Pedrera immediately. It’s a long walk with a leg wound, and we have to be there fifteen minutes ago.”
“Jeffrey’s wounded too,” objected O’Neill.
“Yes, which is why you both need to start moving-and helping each other along. Now don’t make me send a healthy man to make sure the cripples do what they’re told.”
“ Sassenach bastard,” Owen grumbled.
“Yes, fine, I’m a bastard-just get moving.”
Which the two hobbling Irishmen did.
North turned, looked up at the balloon, a black blotch against the almost black clouds overhead, and gave what he hoped would be his last orders on this operation: “Keep the Spanish musketeers under fire, men. Mr. Ohde, let’s start lighting the longer fuses.”
Miro scanned the remaining passengers. “You,” he said, pointing to the tall hidalgo prisoner, “strip as far as decency allows.”
“What? I am-”
“You are staying here if you do not do as I say; you are the extra weight we must carry.” Miro thought again. “Turlough, you see that large leather case next to you?”
“Aye. What is it?”
“Something we are not going to bring after all. Toss it down the stairs.”
“My instruments!” howled Asher.
“Doctor,” said Miro in the most soothing tone he could manage, “where you are going, you will have the tools you’ve always dreamed of-and complained of not having.”
“But those are my-”
“They are gone. I am sorry. And Turlough, leave your cuirass and sword.”
“Maybe I should be getting a quick haircut, as well?”
“If I thought it would make a difference, I’d handle the scissors myself. Now, Virgilio, how many casks of oil can we dump overboard and still make it to Dragonera?”
“What? Dump fuel? That is not-”
“Virgilio, no arguments, not now. How many can we lose and keep a reasonable margin for error?”
“Two. Three at most.”
“Virgilio…”
“All right. Four. But no more than that, really.”
Miro nodded to Sean. “Four barrels overboard, then-and have them hit down inside the Castell. Let’s give Palma a fireworks show it won’t soon forget.”
North lit the master fuse on the roof, stood hands on hips and surveyed the beautiful architecture one last time, reflecting that he might be the last human ever to see it in all its delicate, pristine beauty. A shame really, he thought, and then darted for the stairs.
As the last of the passengers on the lazarette’s roof-the Hibernian and Turlough Eubanks-leaped over into the netting, Lefferts had finally finished hauling Asher up into the gondola, where he hung on the end of his belaying line like some limp, improbably bony fish. Frank and Giovanna were on their way up, and the net showed no sign of excess stress; Miro and Virgilio had tested it often enough, after all.
To the north, the bells of Santa Catharina began to chime. It was an alarum, of course, to warn the city that one of its defenses was under attack, but from here, it sounded like a celebration. Then, as if to remind Miro that they were not out of danger yet, a musket ball zipped through the floor of the gondola and carried on up to put a hole in the bottom of the envelope.
“Don Estuban,” Virgilio gasped, “please; we must go.”
Miro looked over the side, saw muzzle flashes aiming up at him, saw sharper brighter ones winking out the arrow slits along the northern and eastern faces of the Castell, saw several of the Spanish musketeers fall. He looked at the remaining men in the net. “We need to move,” he apologized. “We’ll have to pull you up as we travel.”
“Fine,” panted Turlough. “Just get us off this bloody shooting range!”
“Virgilio,” shouted Miro over the revving engines, “take us home.”
Thomas North counted the men as they went past. Many were wounded; Paul Maczka of the Wrecking crew was dead, along with two of the Hibernians, and one of the Wild Geese-little Dillon. Their gear had been carried out, but their bodies would be buried here, beneath the rubble of the storeroom that North now closed behind him.
He locked the storeroom door-mostly to intensify the effects of the impending internal blast-and checked the fuse on the two kegs of powder he had placed beside the trapdoor into the tunnel. It would burn down in four minutes, give or take.
North lit the fuse, blew out the match, dropped down into the secret passage, and closed the trapdoor behind him.
Virgilio had just completed a sweeping turn to the west, which would put them among the southernmost hills of the Tramuntana mountain range, thereby screening them from eyes in Palma. But as they slipped behind the crest of the Serra de Portopi, the passengers and crew of the dirigible heard a long, dull roar behind them.
Turning to look, Frank and Giovanna watched a column of white-yellow flame shoot up from the broad maw of the Castell de Bellver into the night sky. Large explosions pockmarked the blinding plume: those were powder kegs blown high before they, too detonated in mid air. “So long, fairy-tale prison,” whispered Frank.
“And saluti freedom,” sighed Giovanna.
The explosive jet settled down into a sullen orange glow; pretty at this range, it betokened an inferno trapped within the sandstone cauldron that were the walls of the Castell de Bellver.
Then they were behind the crest of Serra de Portopi, and both the flame and the sound of the bells was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Thomas North tapped the Hibernian beside him, who left his position at the ruined windmill and fell back toward the black-hulled llaut that had raised its black sail. Back there, North also heard the sound he had been waiting for: the cough and steady growl of the extra motor that they had brought as an emergency back-up for the dirigible, now reverted to its original function: a small outboard motor.
A little more than half a mile to the northwest, the initially angry flames marking the Castell de Bellver had died down to occasional gutterings. From north and south, Spanish units were converging on the roads that led to the lanes that devolved into the cart tracks that wound up the slopes upon which the burning fortress was perched. What they would find when they got there was hard to estimate. On the one hand, there hadn’t been that many flammables on hand, even counting the containers of fuel jettisoned by the dirigible. But, on the other hand, the castle was sealed and the Spanish had no way to get in to fight the conflagration. Given time, the wooden floors and beams and fixtures would catch fire, too-if they hadn’t already.
“Colonel North, we’re ready.” It was Grogan’s voice.
“Very well, Grogan. Back aboard, now.” North followed the Irishman closely, and together they waded out to the llaut. They were hip-deep when they pushed it off the sandbar that its keel was barely kissing. As Ohde opened the throttle of the outboard slightly, North and Grogan hauled themselves over the side, receiving a hand from the waiting crowd hunkered low in the boat.